EEIA to Speaker McCarthy: Cut Regulatory Burdens to Unleash American Energy
Following the epic fight to elect Kevin McCarthy Speaker of the House, in his acceptance remarks the new Speaker sounded the call to reduce regulatory burdens on energy development with these words: "We pledge to cut the regulatory burden, lower energy costs for families, and create good-paying jobs for workers by unleashing reliable, abundant American-made energy."
With the letter below, we are reaching out to Speaker McCarthy to endorse his prioritization of reform, elaborate on the threats of the status quo and the opportunities if real reform can be implemented, and offer the support of the energy infrastructure development community in moving a reform agenda through Congress.
We encourage you to support this effort with your own letters to your Representatives and Senators urging them to prioritize energy regulatory reform as they begin serving in the new Congress. Feel free to borrow from the text below. Providing us a copy of any letters sent would be appreciated.
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The Honorable Kevin McCarthy
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Mr. Speaker,
On behalf of the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliances' (EEIA) businesses and workers, please accept our congratulations on your election to the position of Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives.
As the 118th Congress convenes, we look forward to your strong leadership of the energy policy agenda outlined in your acceptance remarks: "We pledge to cut the regulatory burden, lower energy costs for families, and create good-paying jobs for workers by unleashing reliable, abundant American-made energy."
We endorse your commitment to leverage America's abundant resources to advance our nation's energy independence and security, lower our energy costs and create good-paying jobs for our workers. We agree with your identification of regulatory burdens as a principal barrier to achieving these goals. We pledge our strong support for lowering those barriers, including permitting reform, essential to unleashing the enormous potential of our energy resources.
EEIA represents American businesses and workers who build energy infrastructure. They comprise a vast supply chain of providers of construction, equipment, materials, services and workers; including tens of thousands of large and small businesses and millions of workers throughout all fifty states. The energy infrastructure they build includes oil, gas and renewable production complexes, pipelines and midstream processing and storage facilities, generation and transmission systems, and downstream processing and export facilities.
Abundant energy is essential to a robust and growing economy, advancing technology, improved grid reliability and energy affordability, especially as we transition to lower carbon energy systems. American energy can also support our geopolitical interests by providing our allies with the means to end reliance for energy on countries who do not share our values and interests and who threaten our security. Exporting low-carbon American energy such as LNG can also help our trading partners lower their reliance on higher-emitting fuels. These outcomes, all essential to our national security, cannot be realized without major additions to American energy infrastructure.
New energy infrastructure will also be essential for integration of renewables and net-zero fuels and power generation into America's energy portfolio. New transmission systems are necessary to bring growing wind and solar capacity into our power grid. Infrastructure to capture, transport and sequester (CCS) carbon dioxide is essential to integration of low and zero-carbon fuels such as hydrogen, ethanol and biofuels.
CCS also enables lowering the carbon intensity of industrial processes such as cement, steel, fertilizer and petrochemical manufacturing. Coupling CCS with natural gas power generation will further reduce greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining grid reliability and affordability. None of this can happen at scale without development of a major new nationwide network of CO2 pipelines coupled with underground CO2 sequestration wells.
Building and operating this much-needed new energy infrastructure will add countless well-paying American jobs in construction, manufacturing and services, and underpin the prosperity of families and communities throughout the country.
Yet under the current regulatory regime, this bullish scenario cannot happen at the scale and speed necessary to expand our energy systems to meet our needs for growth and security. Regulatory barriers are constraining our ability to put infrastructure in place. Up-front investment in planning and engineering of new energy systems is discouraged by risks related to high regulatory hurdles such as unnecessarily lengthy and complex environmental assessments that add little or nothing to protection of the environment.
The prospect of endless litigation of permits also adds unacceptable risk to construction budgets and timeframes. Uncertain, ambiguous and excessive regulatory provisions give opponents of development the tools to discourage, slow or stop projects as permits are applied for; or even for those projects already under construction.
To realize our potential, these unnecessary regulatory barriers must be reduced or eliminated, beginning with much-needed reforms to energy infrastructure permitting. EEIA looks forward to your leadership and to working with your office and the Committees with jurisdiction over energy, environmental and infrastructure policy. We are committed to mobilizing the voices of the energy infrastructure supply chain to advocate for these opportunities and reduce the regulatory burdens that now prevent development of essential energy infrastructure and keep America from capitalizing on our rich blessing of energy resources for our prosperity and security.
Thank you again for your leadership and your commitment to reducing the regulatory burden on energy infrastructure as a national priority.
Sincerely,
Toby Mack, President
Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance
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